


destination: retrograde

by cosmicwoosan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Moving On, Slice of Life, Space Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26154295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwoosan/pseuds/cosmicwoosan
Summary: “I want to go there,” he said, pointing out his window.“Where?” San asked.“There. Wherever my finger lands.”Wooyoung was always like that. Sure but not sure. San couldn’t understand how Wooyoung wasn’t afraid of whatever ‘there’ was, but seeing him smile was reassuring enough.“Trust me, San,” Wooyoung had said, “I promise I’ll get us out of here. Just give it time.”-in which San traverses the galaxies before finally realizing where he was always meant to land.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Choi San/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 12
Kudos: 125





	destination: retrograde

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii im back!!
> 
> i was really sad for a while, so i cranked this bad boy out in about four-ish days. it was actually an idea i had a whole ass year ago, but i finally decided to write it lol
> 
> tags seem a little scary but the descriptions are really vague. also, time skips around a lot in this fic, i apologize for all the chaos!! enjoy :D
> 
> this fic is brought to you by:  
> Outer Space/Carry On - 5 Seconds of Summer  
> Yellow - Coldplay

Wooyoung had always been a bit shameless.

Shameless when it came to pressing kisses on his best friend’s cheeks at random points in time, hugging him from the back, jumping into his arms, and pretty much anything that just _had_ to remind San that he was in love with the boy.

San liked to watch Wooyoung a lot. Wooyoung had childlike innocence in his veins; his favorite thing to do was run around the beach with his arms stretched out, making airplane noises that not even an eight-year-old would make, cackling like a hyena so loudly it competed against the crashing waves. His eyes scrunched up in the most beautiful way, San noticed. He’d never known anything as precious as Wooyoung’s smile.

When they took trips down to Busan, that was Wooyoung’s favorite activity. He acted as if no one was around, bold and raucous but couldn’t give less of a fuck about what people thought of him. It made San smile with pride rather than embarrassment as he let Wooyoung roam free, where nothing held him back, not even the questionable stares the two of them received from irritated onlookers.

And Wooyoung would always look back at him and smile, that goddamn smile, that made San’s heart thrum in his chest and caused a fire in his bones, lit him up like a fucking Christmas tree, and devastated him all at the same time.

San didn’t realize just _how_ in love he was until that night.

The beach was quiet, though it was to be expected at nearly two in the morning. They had lain out on the sand without any sort of blanket or towel, small particles invading places that they shouldn’t, but it wasn’t like either of them cared. Not when the waves crashing against the shore tickled their toes as they laughed about absolutely nothing, hands behind their heads, gazing up at the starless sky. San wished there were some, but when he looked over, he remembered that there was one right next to him.

Wooyoung shined brighter than any star San had ever seen.

“Hey, San-ah,” Wooyoung said, head falling to his side to look at his friend, “what do you think is out there?”

“Out where?” San returned Wooyoung’s gaze.

“You know, _there,_ ” Wooyoung said, eyes glancing upwards.

Still confused, San’s eyebrows knitted together as he frowned. “I still don’t know what you mean.”

All of a sudden, Wooyoung sat up and stretched his arms out with a yawn. “I just… I don’t know. I get real weird at this time of night.”

“You’re real weird at any time of day,” San joked, and Wooyoung punched him lightly on the arm. San just laughed, feigning hurt. He looked up where Wooyoung had directed. “Do you mean, like, outer space?”

Wooyoung shrugged. “I guess. Or just… anywhere but here, you know?”

San smiled. For the most part, Wooyoung was simple-minded. He enjoyed very simple things, such as hot coffee on a cold day or late night talk shows or freshly-done laundry. But there was always something hidden beneath those wonderous eyes of his, something along the lines of ambition, exploration, the desire to fulfill something that wasn’t just working a nine-to-five job or lounging around at home all day. No, San knew that Wooyoung wanted _more_ than that.

He wanted to explore, and San knew deep in his chest that he would follow Wooyoung to the end of the world.

“What’s with the sudden existential question?” San asked lightheartedly.

Wooyoung’s next answer was anything but. “I wanna get out of here, Sannie. I wanna go somewhere far, far away from here.” His tone was stern, face firm and eyes set on the night sky.

Wooyoung’s side profile was gorgeous. San had always been jealous of his skin, smooth and sun-kissed by the gods, a jawline so sharp it could cut through metal, and eyes that spelled out entire galaxies. They always crinkled when he laughed; that dolphin-like laugh of his was enough to make San’s heart flutter and knees feel like jelly. He felt giddy whenever Wooyoung was near, and whenever thoughts of Wooyoung floated past his lovestruck head, he swooned.

He wanted to be with Wooyoung for everything.

“Where do you have in mind?” San asked.

Wooyoung sighed, his eyes stagnant on the sky. “Somewhere… bright. Fun. New and exciting. If I had enough money, I’d take a rocket to space.”

“Wooyoung, are you sure you’re not drunk?”

Wooyoung finally looked down, smiling as he shook his head. “Not tonight, Sannie. Just… emotional, I guess.”

“What’s wrong?” San asked with a frown as he sat up, hooking his arms around his knees.

Wooyoung blinked, his eyes flickering upwards to the sky again. He sighed deeply. “It sounds childish, I know, but I’m just so bored. I know I have like, sixty or seventy good years ahead of me, but I’m young and stupid and I want to explore. Go somewhere. Experience life to the fullest before the world eventually goes to shit. Who knows, a meteor could strike us out of nowhere tomorrow! I want to be somewhere that isn’t here when that happens.”

“ _If_ that happens,” San corrected him.

Wooyoung scoffed, though he was smiling. “Anyway, you know what I mean? You’ve known me long enough to know that I’m not a homebody. I like being outside and going places, and being stuck in this country is really killing me.”

“In case you forgot, Wooyoung, you can’t really speak any other languages.”

“Then I’ll learn some!” Wooyoung exclaimed with ferocity, eyes burning brightly even under the dark sky. It made San’s heart leap. “I wish… I wish I had money. Just so I could get out of here.”

“Don’t we all,” San said.

Wooyoung shook his head. “You don’t get it, San. Sure, everyone dreams of having money so they can live luxuriously and go on vacation and not have to worry about debt or loans or mortgages… but me, I don’t _want_ to settle down. I want to keep moving, go everywhere, go places that maybe haven’t even been explored yet! I know I sound like a fucking idiot or some stupid, naïve child, but…” He sighed, his head finally drooping downwards towards his chest. “I know it’ll never happen. I don’t think it’s possible for anybody, really. Even billionaires.”

San hated seeing Wooyoung sad. He wanted nothing more than for Wooyoung to have the world in the palm of his hands. If only _he_ were the world, Wooyoung would already have it.

San orbited Wooyoung like the planets orbited the sun. Wooyoung was his gravity that brought him back to the center whenever he strayed. He saw all sorts of beautiful things, things that San had never known, in Wooyoung’s eyes, whole galaxies and supernovas that shined brighter than anything San had ever seen. Wooyoung was true light.

“San-ah,” Wooyoung said, “if I left… would you come with me?”

The question took San completely by surprise, but he already knew his answer. “Of course I would, Woo. You know I would.”

Wooyoung smiled, his eyes nearly closing. “Of course. How could I ever doubt you?”

San fake-gasped, placing a hand on his chest. “The fact that you would even doubt me!”

Wooyoung’s smile grew even wider. “You’re such a drama queen,” he said, punching San’s shoulder. “But… I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t doubt you, since you’re my best friend and all, but I guess I just think about this a lot.”

“Think about what, exactly?”

Wooyoung shrugged, resting his chin on his knees. “Leaving. You coming with me. Us going places and exploring.”

“You know I would, Woo, but that doesn’t mean we _can_ ,” San said. “Like you said, neither of us have money. But trust me, if we did, I’d follow you to the fucking moon and back.”

Wooyoung giggled, head falling in what seemed to be embarrassment. “You’re crazy, San.”

 _Just for you._ “You love it,” San joked, jabbing at Wooyoung’s arm with his fingers.

Several more moments passed in silence, but San didn’t mind. They had a lot of moments like those, where the two just stared off into the sky without saying a word, but that didn’t matter much. Not to San, at least. Every moment with Wooyoung, silent or not, was one San treasured. He often compared Wooyoung to the stars, but there was one difference: San couldn’t always remember the stars, but he could certainly always remember Wooyoung.

With every passing moment, San was falling deeper and deeper. Not saying anything felt like a black hole was swallowing him.

And then.

“San-ah,” Wooyoung said, breaking the silence, “do you love me?”

If the last question hadn’t taken San by surprise, this one certainly did. San felt his heart jump, panic, and his mouth hung open in shock. “Of course, Woo,” he replied as placidly as he could. “You’re my best friend.”

“No, San, you know what I mean.”

San swore his heart leaped into his throat then. He found himself at a complete loss for words. Wooyoung was shameless, sure, but… this was not what San expected at all.

“I… um…”

“Some days I feel like you do and just aren’t telling me,” Wooyoung said indifferently. He turned towards San, who was looking at him like a deer in the headlights, whose head was in a whole other dimension. “You do, right? You love me?”

And, like the lovestruck idiot he was, San nodded dumbly.

Instead of showing any sort of contempt, Wooyoung just smiled again, a soft, hesitant smile that made San’s stomach do somersaults inside him. “Thought so. You should’ve told me.”

San thought, how was he supposed to? It’s never easy telling someone you love them, especially when that someone is your best friend. San hadn’t _always_ been in love with Wooyoung. How was he supposed to tell him? San looked down at the sand in complete embarrassment, wanting nothing more than to disappear into the universe for the rest of eternity.

Wooyoung glanced back up at the sky, the dark void that led to the vast unknown, but the smile never left his face. “Show me.”

That makes San’s head snap up. “W-wait, what?”

“You just told me you’d follow me to the moon and back,” Wooyoung said, “and you basically confessed that you love me.”

He reached out, touching San’s cheek and gently guiding it to face him. San couldn’t even bring himself to look at him. “San, look at me.”

And San couldn’t ignore him even if he tried. He looked up, albeit quite slowly, and Wooyoung was staring at him, eyes overtaken by something that San had never seen before and couldn’t identify for the life of him, but they were just as beautiful, if not more, as they were before.

“I’m sorry,” San whispered, tears beginning to spring at his eyes.

“Don’t be,” Wooyoung whispered back. His thumb swiped across his cheekbone, wiping away a stray tear that had fallen.

“Don’t apologize. Instead… prove it to me. Prove that you love me. Prove that you would come with me to the moon.”

☾

Wooyoung had a telescope in his room and a carpet of the stars. It was royal blue and the stars were once white, though too many dirty footprints rendered them a light beige color. The telescope stood right near the window and Wooyoung would often look out of it even when there were no stars to be seen. San would watch and wait for him to be done with his exploration of the sky, but he would admire him in the meantime while his eyes were trained on something else.

San was fourteen when Wooyoung decided that the carpet was too old and threw it away. It was also the age when he started to feel things for Wooyoung that weren’t just platonic, even though he didn’t realize it at the time.

It was also the age Wooyoung got his first girlfriend.

San didn’t understand why he felt such a disdain towards her. He really had nothing against her; she was pretty, nice, smart, and treated Wooyoung well. There was no reason not to like her.

But San was sulky, probably irritatingly so, to the point where Wooyoung just stopped asking him if he wanted to hang out with him if his girlfriend was going to be present. Wooyoung was never mad at him, or if he was, he never told him.

When Wooyoung was fifteen, they broke up. San had never felt such relief.

While Wooyoung didn’t take the breakup _that_ personally, it still took a few sleepovers filled with greasy popcorn and shitty horror movies to move on from the initial heartbreak. Eventually, Wooyoung and his ex-girlfriend reconciled, became friends, and San would come to understand why the breakup happened.

“It makes me wonder,” Wooyoung had said, “if I… you know.”

“What?” San asked.

“She broke up with me because she likes girls, San.” Wooyoung frowned, not out of annoyance or spite, but out of some kind of curiosity. “It made me wonder… if I like boys too.”

Wooyoung squeezed his eyes shut and hugged his plushie harder, a giant teddy bear that he’d gotten for his ninth birthday that was somehow still held together at the ragged seams. “I don’t… I don’t know, Sannie. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.”

“Why don’t you want to?” San had scooted over to him and put an arm around his shoulder.

“I’m scared.” Wooyoung sniffled. “The world is a scary place filled with mean people a-and if I like boys, then… god, people would hate me, wouldn’t they?”

“I wouldn’t hate you.”

Wooyoung had laughed at that; it wasn’t a joke, but at least it helped him in that moment, giving him just a shred of reassurance. San wished he could’ve given him even more, told him that _hey, I think I like boys too. I think I like you._

But Wooyoung was vulnerable. San didn’t want to add more fuel to the fire.

So he held Wooyoung and assured him that he wouldn’t hate him no matter what flying obstacles or space debris were flung their way. He promised that he would stand by his side no matter what, always watching, always waiting.

“Like a constellation,” Wooyoung had said with a tiny smile. “The stars are always in the same place.”

“Yeah,” San said, not fully understanding. “I’ll always be here.”

“Always.” Wooyoung repeated the word breathlessly. “Always.”

“Yeah.”

Wooyoung chuckled, like a bell chime or a twinkling star, and San wished he could’ve told Wooyoung then, only if he’d known.

☾

As promised, San was there when Wooyoung came out to his family. At the ripe age of eighteen years old, Wooyoung was proud, beaming. Though his family was accepting of him, they warned him about the things he was already afraid of, but he knew. He already knew. And he was ready for it.

Wooyoung was ready for a lot of things. San could see it in him; _anybody_ could. Anybody could see the way Wooyoung’s entire body glowed with ambition and wonder and hope, all the glimmering things in the universe. He was a shooting star that everybody wished upon. San knew he certainly did.

Wooyoung was ready for change. He was ready build a life for his own, at _eighteen._ He knew what he wanted, or, most of it.

He was stargazing out of his telescope, which he hadn’t been using because of exams, smiling for several minutes on end, when he said, “I want to go there,” pointing out his window.

“Where?” San asked, walking over to take a look. It didn’t look like Wooyoung was pointing at anything.

“There. Wherever my finger lands.”

Wooyoung was always like that. Sure but not sure. San couldn’t understand how Wooyoung wasn’t afraid of whatever ‘there’ was, but seeing him smile was reassuring enough.

San worried, yes, but he was confident in Wooyoung, just as Wooyoung was confident in himself.

“Trust me, San-ah,” Wooyoung had said, “I promise I’ll get us out of here. Just give it time.”

San didn’t know what Wooyoung meant by ‘here’ or ‘there’ but he knew that he would go wherever Wooyoung went. Whether it be ‘here’ or ‘there,’ San knew he wanted to be right next to him.

☾

San was nineteen, freshly graduated, when he told Wooyoung he loved him, not because he _wanted_ to, but because Wooyoung seemed to know everything about him, even the feelings he kept hidden deep in the crevices of his skin, sheltered under every layer of his heart. Wooyoung could see right through him. Wooyoung _knew_ him.

“Prove that you would come with me to the moon,” he’d said.

It was a single night, yet it wasn’t enough time for San to even _begin_ to prove how much he loved Wooyoung.

Kissing Wooyoung for the first time felt like a monsoon, an earthquake, and a tsunami all in one. San was probably shaking throughout the entire thing, but Wooyoung held him down, _just as he always did_ , grounded him, brought him back to earth even though gravity was lifting and San’s head was floating away. Wooyoung kept him _here_.

San swore he could feel Wooyoung smiling with every breath he stole from him.

But Wooyoung wasn’t a thief or a sadist. No, San was willingly giving up his breaths, his sanity, his time, all because Wooyoung held him down, brought him back, captured his heart and mind and body.

He loved Wooyoung. He loved him so much.

Wooyoung was the one to pull away, but he held San by the back of his head, keeping their foreheads together as they both gasped for breath.

“Sannie,” he panted, leaving one last kiss on his lips. “Come with me.”

He got up then, and San followed him back to his car, a seven-year-old Honda that probably needed maintenance, where he drove over the speed limit to the nearest love motel.

San, wound up from Wooyoung’s sudden shift in demeanor, didn’t question what the place was. With the money he supposedly didn’t have, he payed for a room even though they didn’t have any other belongings with them, pushed San onto the bed, and climbed on top of him.

San gave himself to Wooyoung that night.

And he thought over and over again, _there is nobody else I would rather have with me through devastating weather and the eventual apocalypse. When we are in our graves and the sun swallows its home, I want to be next to you wherever our souls may go._

After nineteen years of living and more than half of those living next to Wooyoung, San had never been so sure of himself.

☾

San was nineteen when Wooyoung disappeared. He woke up in an unfamiliar bed, half-dressed and alone.

Bleary-eyed and dazed from sleep still, he trudged into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. Entire galaxies painted his collarbone and chest, remnants of the night before.

 _How_ , he wondered, _could I have possibly proved to him that I love him in just one night?_

There was no note. There was no trace Wooyoung left behind, and when San called his number, he was met with a prerecorded voice saying that the number was not in service.

Even Wooyoung’s car was gone.

San got home thanks to a cab, where he dashed upstairs and changed into something a lot less revealing. When he got back downstairs, his mother looked at him questioningly.

“Where’s Wooyoung?” he asked breathlessly.

“What? Weren’t you with him last night?”

“He… he left.”

“What?”

The marks on his neck itched. He curled his fingers into fists so he wouldn’t touch them. “Y-yeah, I was with him last night. We, uh, spent a night at a motel because his car was having some trouble and when I woke up, he was gone. Car was gone too.”

His mother stood up then, face contorted in confusion while San felt his face shriveling up with oncoming tears. “He just… left you there?” she asked carefully, like she _knew._

Wooyoung would’ve known. Because he’d seen San’s tears before when they reflected blue light off the television screen, some stringed orchestral piece from a sappy romance movie playing in the background, words of love coming from the speakers. He knew San’s face when he was about to cry and was there to put his hands on his and squeeze tightly, reassuring San that _yes, I am here with you._

San squeezed his own hand then and bit back tears.

It did not feel like Wooyoung’s at all.

☾

According to Wooyoung’s parents, Wooyoung had taken out a substantial loan, and that was all they knew.

“Honestly, he was very secretive about his plans,” Wooyoung’s mother told San. “He told us he got into a university somewhere, didn’t tell us where. He was handling finances all on his own, never told us what he was planning, but… we trusted him. We still do.”

San saw the slightest hint of hesitation in her eyes.

He knew Wooyoung worked hard. Two part-time jobs, student council, studying, homework assignments and endless essays. San wondered how the hell Wooyoung’s body didn’t collapse underneath him, but even though his eyes seemed a lot hollower leading up to Doomsday, he smiled just as brightly, probably because he was getting step by step closer to ‘there.’

Even though Wooyoung’s mother said she trusted him with wavering confidence, San trusted him wholeheartedly.

 _I trust him_ , he told himself.

And he did. He really, really did.

☾

Faced with his own challenges of university life and new friends and crotchety professors, San found himself without a rocket in galaxies ravaged by storms.

His rocket was somewhere else. He had no idea where.

He’d asked around. He’d asked old friends and even new friends, people who may have heard his name. Searched up ‘Jung Wooyoung’ on every search engine, every social media platform, hoping that maybe his whereabouts would be unveiled, but alas, Jung Wooyoung was somewhere completely out of orbit, and San was alone.

 _Where are you?_ San messaged a number that would never respond.

And even though he knew it would never respond, he didn’t stop waiting.

☾

The universe and fate combined seemed to hate Choi San.

Once upon a time, someone told him that they imagined the two of them traveling unexplored territory. He’d given himself to them because that was what he believed his future to be. Them. _They_ were his future.

On the train to his new life, San gazed out the window at the blur of passing landscapes and objects and wondered where in the world his future had gone.

_“If I left… would you come with me?”_

San bit the inside of his lip and thought to himself spitefully, _You didn’t even give me the chance._

☾

San was twenty years old when he met Park Seonghwa. A year older than him, San had met him miraculously through an online ad that he’d posted saying that he was seeking a roommate. Park Seonghwa was launched into his life like a meteorite.

Where San was a tiny unidentified space object, Seonghwa was a monstrous star in the works. He smiled too wide for his own good, sometimes to the point where he looked like he was in pain, had ambitions similar to Wooyoung’s, and an entire encyclopedia for a brain that he hid beneath coffee and the occasional cigarette.

Seonghwa was going in for engineering. San told him he should be a writer instead because of how eloquently he spoke, but Seonghwa raised a straight eyebrow at him and said, “Maybe that’s what _you_ want to be and you’re just projecting your closeted ambitions on me.”

“No, I literally don’t know what I want to do with my life,” San countered.

_Because what I wanted in life is gone and I don’t know what I’m doing without it._

Seonghwa shrugged. “You got time, kid.”

“You’re a year older than me.”

“Kid.”

☾

School always came easy to San despite his abhorrence towards it in general. He would study with Wooyoung after school (when Wooyoung wasn’t working, at least), and would always finish his assignments thoroughly and on time. He was a star student, maybe even a little bit of a teacher’s pet.

University was a whole other universe to San.

But it brought him Jeong Yunho, his first destination.

Seonghwa had taken San to his first ever college party in the fall. Just before midterms, when San should’ve been studying instead, he was at a stranger’s house under blacklights and neon sign décor with a red cup in his hand while he watched pandemonium unfold right before his eyes. He’d seen scenes like these in movies; he never thought he’d be living one himself.

There weren’t many people, just scattered stars instead of clusters, but San was so sweaty and distracted and disoriented from just a few sips of alcohol that he didn’t know what to do when a stranger landed in his lap.

“Oh, hey!” The stranger greeted him with chubby cheeks and a comforting smile. “You must be new, never seen you around before. Freshman?”

“Y-yeah,” San responded, eyes widened in bewilderment at the very tall, very attractive man accidentally sprawled across his lap.

“Oh, same, actually! I just have a bunch of older friends. What’s your name?”

“San.”

“San, cool! I’m Yunho.”

San shook Yunho’s hand.

And then, so much more.

It wasn’t the alcohol. San didn’t drink that much, and if Yunho was drunk, he certainly didn’t seem like it. Maybe it was the adrenaline, the excitement that came with finally landing somewhere after drifting for so long. Because Yunho touched more than just San’s hand that night after he declared himself too lethargic to move from San’s lap, yet he had it in him to straighten himself up, straddle San’s legs, and give him some sort of impromptu lap dance.

San couldn’t help himself from growing beneath Yunho’s hips because fuck, that man could move. Yunho tilted his head and looked down at him with a revolutionary smirk, one that led them upstairs instead, where they stripped themselves of their clothes and explored each other for the first time.

San was not experienced in the world of bottoming, and Yunho was bigger than he’d anticipated. They tried, they really did, but San was near tears from both pain and the frigid, distant memory of Wooyoung being the one beneath him. Because Wooyoung _trusted_ him with his body, and even though Wooyoung never said he loved San, it made San feel that way.

Yunho offered to reverse the roles, but San had already closed his legs and opened his heart. It spilled tears from his eyes in front of a complete stranger.

“I’m sorry,” San managed to get out through choked sobs. “I’m sorry, I can’t… I can’t do this.”

Yunho sighed, understandably disappointed. “It’s okay.”

San watched him get dressed, but he stayed. When asked why he was staying, Yunho replied, “Because you seem like you have a lot on your mind. You’re also naked, and since I don’t know when you’re going to move, I don’t want anyone coming in here and getting the wrong idea.”

San blinked at him. Yunho just smiled that same smile and put a massive hand on his shoulder, rocking him gently. “What is it? Heartbreak? Still getting over someone?” he asked.

Protection. Safety. That was what Yunho was trying to offer him. San appreciated it, truly.

Getting over someone…

How could he?

How could he get over ‘someone’ when that ‘someone’ held his entire future?

He could most certainly try, but the rate of succession felt abysmal and his chest twisted in taut, unpleasant knots that yanked his heartstrings and crumpled him up into a ball on the bed. Naked and still _alone._

When Yunho was met with silence, he rubbed San’s shoulder harder.

“I understand,” he said.

 _No, you don’t_ , San thought, teeth clenched as he did. _You couldn’t possibly understand how it feels to be launched into space without a rocket, with just a helmet instead of a full suit, drifting, and so fucking uncertain._

_I am simply existing and he is somewhere thriving, I’m sure of it._

He cried harder, under a stranger’s careful eye, while that same stranger’s hand traced comforting circles into his arm.

Planets. Meteors. Comets.

“It’s not easy,” Yunho told him, his hand coming to a halt. “It’s not easy, never will be. And it may never happen. You may never completely move on from whoever you loved.”

“ _Love_ ,” San corrected him instantly, though a suppressed gag followed the word. “I still love them.”

“And that’s what I mean,” Yunho went on. “You just might always love them. There’s nothing wrong with moving on, but there’s nothing wrong with continuing to love someone either.”

_Even when there’s no chance of them coming back?_

“Were they nice to you?” Yunho asked quietly.

“Yeah,” San answered.

Because they were. They really were. Even though they vanished after a promise that was probably empty from the start, they treated him like he was the world.

“Then that’s what matters,” Yunho said. “Because… at least you’d have good memories of them instead of sour ones.”

After a few seconds, Yunho asked to clarify, “Do they love you back?”

“I don’t know.”

Yunho nodded. “I don’t expect you to tell me the whole story, and I don’t need one. It’s your business and your life. But… just know that it’s not going to last forever.”

Right. Because there are so many fish in the sea, so many stars in the unseen galaxies, and San had plenty to choose from. One was right here, after all.

In the form of Jeong Yunho. Destination number one.

☾

Missing Wooyoung came in bouts, often times at night when the stars that he loved so much stared down at San menacingly, constant reminders that Wooyoung was probably somewhere where the same stars weren’t visible.

San felt foolish for missing someone so much. After all, he was only twenty years old. How could he know what love is? Loving someone so much at nineteen, swearing that his future rested with another, at such a young age? Foolish. Ridiculous.

Seonghwa was in the adjacent room, fast asleep. Dividing the two rooms was a short hallway with a single window at the end that had a sill wide enough to sit on. San sat on that windowsill quite often, knees drawn to his chest, silent tears cascading down his face as he wept for the stars to bring his love back to him.

They only continued to stare.

Moonlight cut through the panes and landed her silver beams across the hall, and San thought to himself, _This would be the perfect spot for Wooyoung’s telescope._

☾

Wooyoung never wanted to be an astronaut despite his fascination with outer space. He didn’t even want to be an astronomer, or a rocket engineer, or anything that even _had_ to do with space.

San thought about this a lot when his face was buried in his textbooks as he studied for classes that were simply prerequisites that would hold no significance to his future. It made him wonder what in the fucking world Wooyoung was doing if he wasn’t studying to become an expert on outer space.

Whatever Wooyoung was doing, it was probably infinitely more significant than what he was doing.

Whenever San was in a sane enough mindset to snap himself out of his hopelessly hopeful reveries, he was able to remind himself that _Wooyoung is gone, doing bigger and better things. He has probably found someone else because what would someone so brilliant want to do with someone so tragically ordinary?_

_He has probably forgotten about you already. It’s time to move on._

Yunho’s generous words chimed in San’s head like bells and a certain nursery rhyme Wooyoung used to sing.

☾

San met Wooyoung when they were seven, after San’s family moved from farm country to a more suburban neighborhood. San had dirty sneakers and stained jeans that he wore out in public. To school, he wore his uniform but it itched against his skin.

San’s hair was somehow always a little dirty no matter how much he washed it. Maybe it was because farm country had cursed him with a constant reminder of where he came from, or maybe the universe just hated him and wanted him to get ridiculed by his peers. Whatever the case, San, the new kid with grimy fingernails and matted hair, was the elementary school’s anomaly.

He didn’t mind being alone. Sitting at the end of the lunch table alone to his seven-year-old thoughts gave him a lot of time to reflect, a lot of time to block out the world and the venomous stares of his classmates. The world became one of ringing and blurred images just to save his poor childhood from crumbling.

And then, Jung Wooyoung slapped his tray down and greeted him with a cheery, “Hi!”

San looked up to see his future best friend, wide-eyed and seemingly insane (by an elementary school student’s definition) because he just sat down across from the new weird kid and said hi to him.

“Choi San,” Wooyoung had said, pointing to himself.

“No, that’s me. I’m Choi San.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Choi San! I’m Choi San.”

San couldn’t help but laugh. Wooyoung smiled at him with five missing teeth and properly introduced himself.

“You know my name?” San had asked.

“Yeah, everyone knows your name,” Wooyoung replied with a shrug in his voice. San began to sulk, to which Wooyoung added, “But no one knows your name like I know your name.”

San raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t get it.”

“They don’t know _you_ , Choi San.” Wooyoung smiled at him again, closed-lipped this time. “And because they don’t know _you_ , I am now the first and only one to know your name.”

Seven-year-old San had no clue what seven-year-old Wooyoung was talking about or how a child could talk in such a profound way. It was several years later, as San’s brain developed and Wooyoung’s stayed the same, that San realized why Wooyoung had no need to change all that much.

He already knew himself.

Probably from birth, San always thought, as the hours and days ticked by, as weeks turned into months that bled into seasons and years. Wooyoung had friends and not-friends, acquaintances and animosities, but he himself was his best friend.

Wooyoung never needed San, but he kept him around anyways. And like an asteroid in its belt, San stayed in orbit, revolving around Wooyoung as if he were the sun, because even though Wooyoung would be fine without him, San would be lost without Wooyoung.

San felt this way all throughout high school, and never did he think his fear would become his reality.

☾

 _I need to stop drifting_ , San thought to himself as his pen glided mindlessly across his page of calculus notes. _I need to find somewhere to land. I need to move on. I need to know my name._

He glanced up and to his left where the counter was. A tall barista with a deep voice and big hands was taking customers’ orders. San wondered if he knew his own name.

‘Mingi,’ his nametag read.

San looked down at the sleeve hugging his coffee cup.

_‘call me! or not if you don’t want to haha’_

As if Mingi were a stranger, San kept his eyes averted, fixed on his phone as he created a new contact for his second destination.

☾

San celebrated the new year with Mingi by his side. It was a smooth night, dark and cold and somewhat melancholy despite the festivities. San was drunk, as was everyone else, when he finally lied with someone else.

Though he was drunk, he wasn’t drunk enough to forget.

The morning after, the sun’s gentle rays felt like raids on his senses. His mouth was dry, as were his eyes, and there was something sourly unpleasant in the back of his mouth. Mingi was next to him, shirtless and turned away.

San crept out of bed to tiptoe over to the bathroom.

He looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was sticking up in all sorts of directions, but his neck and chest were clean slates.

☾

On Valentine’s Day, Mingi asked San if he wanted to be his boyfriend, and San said yes, figuring that _finally, maybe I can move on._

Mingi was a business major with a hobby and knack for making music on the side. As talented as Mingi was, San couldn’t help but look at him and wonder if he really knew his name.

“Sing me a Song Mingi,” he whispered to himself. He chuckled.

“What was that?” Mingi asked, sliding one headphone off his ear.

“Oh, nothing.”

Mingi gave him a blank stare before slipping the headphone back over his ear. “You’re weird sometimes, San.”

San didn’t laugh, or smile, for the rest of that night.

☾

Coffee cups and the sleeves that encase them are thrown away once they’re empty. Mingi’s number and the sleeve it was printed on were thrown away eventually.

Of course it hurt, seeing two lumps in Mingi’s bed instead of one. San had entered dead silently in case Mingi was asleep, but perhaps that was his mistake.

So San just stepped out, equally silent, making sure to twist the doorknob and slide it back into place before releasing it slowly. His footsteps were quiet yet heavy as he caught a cab back home and erased Mingi’s number from his phone.

San told Seonghwa what happened, and he was met with a sympathetic furrow of Seonghwa’s eyebrows and a few shoulder rubs that he just shrugged off.

“It’s not like I loved him or anything,” San said.

“Still, it’s shitty,” Seonghwa replied.

San shrugged again. Because that’s what he was doing. Shrugging, _drifting_.

_It’s not like I loved him or anything._

For some reason, San felt like he would be a lot more torn up if it were Wooyoung sitting in front of him instead of Seonghwa.

“Did I ever tell you about Wooyoung?” San asked.

Seonghwa shook his head. “No, who’s that?”

San sighed, a heavy gust of wind in a matterless void.

“Maybe it’s about time someone else knew his name.”

☾

San was shivering and sobbing by the time Seonghwa finished learning only half of Wooyoung’s name. Words that had been trapped inside his mind for so long were finally released that night, somewhere between two and three in the morning. He was curled up in Seonghwa’s bed, and Seonghwa draped two blankets over his body that encased him in a blazing heat.

“I’m never going to see him again, am I?” San asked, feeling ice on his tongue.

“I can’t answer that,” Seonghwa told him, finally laying down next to him. Several layers of blankets and clothing separated them, but it still felt nice to be held.

It had been so long since someone held him in an embrace that didn’t feel cold.

“But from what you told me, I wouldn’t lose hope,” Seonghwa continued. “I wouldn’t lose hope, not entirely. The world works in strange ways, San.”

“I just… I don’t understand why he just left like that.”

He felt Seonghwa shrug. “Nobody knows except for him, but at the same time, it’s best if you don’t draw such harmful conclusions. No, San, I don’t think he left you because he wanted to. I don’t think he thought you were unimportant or that you weren’t his best friend or that… that it didn’t hurt to leave you.”

San felt his innards shrivel. “What do you mean?”

Seonghwa sighed. “He’s known you for more than half his life, San. I’ve known you for less than a year, and I can tell you right now, it would hurt to leave you. Anyone with a beating heart would feel the same.”

☾

“What a galaxy brain,” Seonghwa said as he and his roommate observed the musician onstage. “Do you hear his lyrics? Absolutely phenomenal.”

San wouldn’t call the lyrics “phenomenal,” but they were definitely at a much higher caliber than Mingi’s lyrics in terms of meaningfulness.

“Galaxy brain, huh?” San questioned with an amused smirk.

“What, never heard the term before?” Seonghwa quipped.

San just laughed and shook his head, turning his attention back to the “galaxy-brained” individual with starlight earrings and a full head of turquoise hair.

☾

“If I looked at your brain, I wonder what I would see,” San had said, aged sixteen, stomach stuffed with chocolate cake and lemonade.

“You’d see a bunch of gray matter. Blood. Squiggly lines.” Wooyoung cracked himself up and rolled onto his stomach, face hovering above San’s. San was so tempted to kiss him.

“You know what I mean, dipshit,” San said with a laugh, playfully pushing Wooyoung’s face away from him. Wooyoung rolled back over, hands dramatically placed over his heart as he made a choking sound.

After a few more rounds of laughter and a heavy sigh, Wooyoung finally settled on San’s bed.

“I hope you’d see an entire galaxy,” he said, feet dangling off the edge. “Galaxies are cool, and I hope I’m cool.”

San scoffed and got up to join him on the bed. “Tell me more,” he said.

“There’s so much in a galaxy, but too much in the universe. I’d want my brain to be a galaxy,” Wooyoung went on. The moonlight was silver, turning the sky a royal blue instead of midnight black, and it was able to illuminate the room enough so San could see his face.

_Your mind is so much more than that._

San wanted nothing more than to kiss him and tell him that.

“You’ve seen pictures of galaxies before. I want my brain to be one of those,” Wooyoung said.

“Which one?”

“An unexplored one, duh.” Wooyoung laughed. “One that we don’t even know about yet. One that might not even _exist_ yet. But I’d want it to be just as beautiful and magnificent as the others.”

Wooyoung was smiling at the ceiling. San was looking at his smile.

_It is. I already know it is._

☾

San was twenty-one when he met Heejae, a beautiful woman with jet black hair and big, round eyes that somehow reminded him of Wooyoung’s. Perhaps that was what drew him to her in the first place, even if he wasn’t aware of it.

She was one of Seonghwa’s classmates. She, by Seonghwa’s definition, also had a “galaxy brain” and the heart and generosity of a grandmother with a prosperous family.

It did not take long for San to fall into her orbit.

She carried herself confidently wherever she walked, whether it be to class or meetings or internships that got her one step closer to her goal.

The one thing that should’ve been a red flag to San was that when he asked her what her goal was, she said, “To be successful, of course.”

And San thought, _what makes one successful?_

Does being successful entail a two-story house and three children and enough savings to retire lavishly? Or does being successful mean barely dragging through life, only to escape through the skin of one’s teeth, and come out not at number one, but _somewhere_?

The way San saw it, Heejae might have been chasing the former.

And it was confirmed that one night, when San had to leave his third destination after she’d struck him across his face and told him to get his life together.

At twenty-one years old.

San had never been so quick to leave.

☾

Wooyoung caressed San’s face with an everlasting frown, a slight scowl, even.

“It’s gonna be okay, Woo,” San assured, attempting to remove Wooyoung’s hand from his face. “It’s okay, she’s gonna divorce him soon—”

“That doesn’t make up for this, San.” Wooyoung’s voice dripped with toxic gas and dust that made the air hard to breathe. “You’re in _high school_ , Sannie. Nobody has their shit figured out in high school. If they say they do, they’re just lying to themselves.”

 _What about you?_ San wanted to ask.

“He was probably just projecting all his insecurities onto you. She was always too good for him, anyway.” Wooyoung scoffed and rolled his eyes, finally dropping his hand from San’s tender cheek. “At least it didn’t leave a mark.”

“Really, Wooyoung, it could’ve been worse—”

“Oh, please, for the love of god, stop saying stuff like that!” Wooyoung stood up with a huff, the floorboards creaking beneath his feet. “Do _not_ make your pain sound like it doesn’t matter, because it does! Everything that happens to you _matters_ , Sannie. Good and bad. If you downplay either of those, you’re going to make yourself miserable because your pain will feel like a black hole and your accomplishments will feel like nothing.”

San balled his fingers into fists and looked down. Wooyoung caught his chin.

“San, look at me.”

San could never deny him of anything.

“Promise me that if _anyone_ makes you feel pain like this again, you will not hesitate to get the fuck out, or at least try to. Promise me.”

Wooyoung held out his pinky, and it was so, so easy for San to link.

☾

_But you leaving felt like more than just a slap to the cheek or a few sharp words._

_I think it’s been two years. Part of me feels numb, the other still hurts._

_I want to move on. I’m trying. I’m trying to land._

_I am hesitating leaving you, desperately clinging onto the hope that you’re out there somewhere, still living, thriving. I don’t_ want _to leave you, even if you’ve already left me._

_I know I need to. I know._

_Please. Let me go so I can breathe again._

☾

San accepted a volunteer opportunity at a local hospital, hoping that he could get _something_ out of it. If not, at least it would look good on a resumé. The task was simple: observe patients in the emergency room, ask if they needed anything but let the nurses handle the more serious things. Really simple.

In room 2-B was a seventeen-year-old with bandages around his forearms. His name was Choi Jongho.

He spoke very seldomly, and if he did, he would just request to use the bathroom. The television in his room remained off, and he spent his days staring at his feet that dangled off of the bed.

For confidentiality reasons, San was never told why Jongho was there, and he never asked.

San was standing outside his room when a nurse tapped him on the shoulder. “San-ssi, can I ask you for a favor?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

The nurse glanced through the cloudy windows to Jongho’s room. “He’s been fiddling with his bandages. I need you to make sure he doesn’t scratch them or move them around too much. Just, keep a closer eye on him.”

“O-okay.” It was an easy agreement, though San was a bit confused since each room had a camera and staff could easily check if Jongho was up to anything suspicious.

“And… maybe try talking to him? He’s quite the quiet fellow, and you’re not that much older than him. Perhaps you’d relate to him.”

The nurse didn’t elaborate, didn’t explain why San would need to “relate” to this young stranger, but a little awkward conversation wouldn’t hurt.

San did notice what the nurse meant, however. Jongho would sit with his legs over the bed, arms crossed over his lap, where he’d try to slip a finger or two beneath his bandages but nothing else.

“Hey,” San had said at one point, when Jongho had attempted three fingers, “don’t do that.”

Jongho looked at him with eyes narrowed into slits, dark crescents beneath them, face set in a deep glower. _Don’t tell me what to do_ , San imagined he thought.

But Jongho’s defiant expression fell soon thereafter as he faced the floor again. He removed his fingers from beneath his bandages.

Before his shift ended, San stopped in the doorway to Jongho’s room. It was lit by a single lamp, and his back was facing him. “Jongho.”

“What do you want?”

“Just want to have a chat, if that’s alright with you,” San said innocuously, stepping into the room.

To San’s surprise, Jongho sighed and turned around. “Could you at least close the door? Not all the way, though. They don’t allow that.”

San nodded, turning to signal the nurses of his actions before letting the door slide almost all the way shut, blocking the light from the hall. “So what do you wanna talk about?” Jongho asked. His arms were by his sides.

San shrugged. “I didn’t really think of anything, honestly,” he said with an awkward laugh.

And again, to his surprise, Jongho laughed as well. “Well, you can start off my telling me about you, I guess.” He squinted at San’s nametag. “San-ssi.”

“Oh, call me hyung,” San said. “But, uh, yeah. I’m Choi San, twenty-one. Currently in college, studying who knows what. I’m here volunteering.”

Jongho cocked an eyebrow. “You’re volunteering? As in, not getting paid?” San nodded. “Now why would you do that?”

San couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. “Sounded like a good learning experience. Saw the opportunity at the student union, figured I’d take it up.”

“I see.”

The one inevitable question stayed looming above their heads until Jongho himself finally decided took on the task of answering it.

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me why I’m here.”

San looked at him, flabbergasted. “Oh, uh, I just didn’t want to invade on any of your privacy or make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine. I mean, you could probably assume why I’m here judging on how I look.” Jongho glanced down at his bandaged arms.

San stared at them for a long time, until the white cloth was the brightest thing in the room. “Did you… hurt yourself?”

Jongho let out a noise of amusement. “Yeah, I _hurt_ myself.”

San winced internally. “Oh.”

“It’s fine,” Jongho said quickly, as if it would make the fact of the matter fine. “I know, it was a stupid decision and I won’t do it again. I’ve learned my lesson. You don’t need to tell me.”

“I wasn’t… going to say any of that,” San said calmly.

The more San looked at Jongho, the more he was confused. Despite the white around his arms and the darkness around his eyes, Jongho appeared as a healthy young man, one that probably held so much promise and potential in his body. His body, that he was willing to let bleed out. To drain itself of all its future.

Jongho sighed abruptly. “So, now you know.”

San blinked and suppressed the urge to yawn. He was tired, definitely, as his eleven o’clock bedtime was nigh, but he needed to be here. Needed to be grounded, even if only for a short amount of time.

“Did you feel alone?” San asked.

_Were you drifting too?_

“I guess you could say that,” Jongho answered in a voice so small, it might as well have been swallowed by a vacuum. “Like, I have friends. I have a family. I just… I don’t know.”

“You can talk about it,” San reassured him. “I won’t judge. I know it can help to get things out sometimes.”

Jongho’s face remained stagnant on the speckled tiles beneath his feet.

“It all felt so… insignificant,” he said just above a whisper. “Everything. Life. My parents want me to go to college for some medical shit, but that’s not what I _want_. I’m trying to make myself want it. But I know that if I don’t go with what my parents want, I might as well be living on the streets. I might as well be fucking dead.”

Jongho spoke as if he’d told his story hundreds of times, but San had a feeling that was far, far from the truth.

“Then what do you want to be?” San asked him.

“I don’t _know_ , hyung. I don’t know what I want to be. I’m too young. A-and then, I feel guilty for thinking that I’m too young because there are people in my grade who know what they want to do. I can’t fucking stand myself. I-I don’t know what to do. I felt so fucking lost and trapped and I just wanted it to _stop_.”

Jongho’s voice was starting to shake. His story was starting to crack.

“And now I’m… I’m a fucking failure. I’m gonna be the laughing stock of my school. ‘Kid tried to kill himself because he couldn’t handle the pressure.’ How fucking pathetic.”

San’s heart burned for Jongho.

“Jongho… what do you like to do? Like, what are some of your hobbies?”

Jongho looked at him questioningly, almost suspiciously, but answered anyway. “Uh… I like basketball. Soccer. Sports in general. Oddly enough, I also like singing. Uh… yeah. Those things.”

Hobbies. Right, San had a few of those. He liked jigsaw puzzles and word searches, sudoku and crosswords, things that involved thinking but not that much thinking. He liked to take things that already existed and figure them out for himself because the way he saw it, life just happened to be like that.

And yet, he hadn’t done anything remotely related to his “hobbies,” but he continued to march onward.

Towards the light. Towards the center of his solar system. Drifting, but was still traveling. Still _trying._

“A good friend of mine told me that people in high school who say they have everything figured are just lying to themselves. We were about your age when he said that to me.” San couldn’t help but smile. “And trust me, I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life. I just know that there are things that are important to me. People. Things. TV shows, movies, stars, Christmas. Things that I look forward to. And while I still don’t know what I’m doing, I’m trying my best, and really, that’s all we can do as people.”

Jongho looked at him with eyes that glistened with tears in such a dimly-lit room.

“I… don’t know the exact pressure and pain you went through because I had someone to ground me. They helped me so much, kept me sane throughout high school, made me feel like it was okay to feel lost. They helped me feel… not alone.”

San swallowed and found himself looking away. “I’m trying not to rely on them so much anymore because they’re gone. Not, like, dead or anything, but they’re not in my life anymore. It’s hard, just kinda drifting along. But I’m trying my best, figuring shit out as I go. I don’t know where I’ll end up, but that’s part of the process. Life isn’t made to be one way or another. People need to realize that success isn’t what’s in our bank accounts or what we have as material possessions.”

_It’s about our destinations. Where we’ve been, where we go, where we’ll land._

“There are amazing things awaiting everybody, Jongho. You don’t need to know what you’re doing. It’s okay to feel lost. You’ll figure it out. You’ll travel the universe with your basketball and microphone in hand and see all the stars and planets and mark your place on the map. You’ll learn so much and go through so much pain and wonder and happiness and anguish and… you’ll be okay. You’ll be just fine.”

San noticed the way gravity shifted in the room as words Jongho had probably never heard filled the space. His lip quivered as a few fat tears finally fell from his eyes.

_And you will meet your Wooyoung._

“Hyung. This person. They… they’re important to you, I can tell.” Jongho chuckled a little and wiped a few tears away. “I don’t know what happened that separated you two, and I won’t ask if it hurts to tell. But I hope that you reunite with them somehow.”

San gave him a genuine smile and a bow of the head. “Thank you, Jongho.”

_I hope that one day you will find someone to teach you so many of the wonderful things that exist._

☾

San knew he was no life saver. He was no profound poet that spoke words of wisdom. He was simply regurgitating things Wooyoung had said to him or taught him.

And yet.

Choi Jongho was gone the day after they talked. He’d been transferred to a psychiatric facility where he would hopefully receive help.

Like Wooyoung, Jongho left no note, but his last words were enough.

“Hyung,” he’d said before San left his room. “Thank you for talking to me. I… I know I sounded stupid. I know that me wanting to kill myself over something so ridiculous is—”

“Don’t say that, Jongho. Your pain matters. Your feelings matter. Don’t reduce your struggle to something ‘stupid’ or ‘ridiculous.’ You’re alive now, you’re here, and you will continue your journey. But no matter what you do, don’t downplay your pain or your accomplishments because your pain will feel like a black hole and your accomplishments will feel like nothing. _Live_ , Jongho. For yourself.”

Jongho had smiled at him, a brief flash of tiny teeth before his lips shut and his eyes closed.

“Hyung… thank you. I hope… I hope that you also… that you also continue to thrive, wherever you may go. And I hope you find your person again.”

San had left his fourth destination, a short yet significant pitstop, with a nod and the best reassuring smile he could muster.

He’d returned home with that same smile on his face. It was dark, and he sat on the windowsill.

☾

“Sannie.” Wooyoung’s feather-light whisper tickled San’s nose and sent a shiver down his spine. Two orgasms later, San and Wooyoung were face-to-face under a crescent moon and a blue glow from the lights above them. “Do you…” His words trailed off as he intertwined their fingers.

“Do I what?” San had asked, feeling an unease pooling in his gut.

Wooyoung let out a sigh. “Sannie, you know how important you are to me, right? You know that you’re my best friend, right?”

San nodded to both those questions. “And you know that I will be right there with you through thick and thin, right?” Wooyoung asked.

“Woo, where is all of this coming from?”

Wooyoung smiled softly and released San’s hand just to cup his face. The pads of his fingers were worn dry from work, but San wouldn’t want to feel anybody else’s.

“I just need you to know that no matter what happens, I would never leave you. I’ll always be with you, okay?” He pressed a kiss to San’s knuckles, a silent promise. “Always.”

“Are we in a John Green novel?” San asked jokingly.

“Say it, San,” Wooyoung said, amused yet deadpan.

“Fine. Always.”

“There you go.”

San chuckled and Wooyoung kissed him.

“There is no one else I’d rather travel the universe with.”

☾

San was starting to think Wooyoung was dead.

Perhaps he’d taken off his helmet and let his head implode. Perhaps he’d miscalculated his trajectory and ended up somewhere with no light and no hope. Perhaps he’d drowned, got struck by lightning, got caught in a tornado, _something._

“He’s fine, Sannie,” Wooyoung’s mother told him one night. San was drunk and crying because he convinced himself that Wooyoung was dead. “If he really did die, we would’ve heard.”

“Then where is he? Have you heard from him?” San’s words were slurred by drunkenness and an unhealthy amount of spit and tears.

“No, we haven’t heard from him,” she said, but her voice was light, hopeful, even. “And I think… I think that’s a very, very good thing.”

_He’d always wanted to escape._

To cut himself away from the umbilical cord of his home and _go_ , wherever, to ‘here’ and ‘there,’ unexplored galaxies and alternate dimensions. Wooyoung wanted to explore the stars that his eyes reflected and make something of himself. He wanted people to know his name.

But no one knew his name like San did. And San was damn certain that nobody ever would.

☾

San was twenty-two when he met Kang Yeosang. He was friends with Kim Hongjoong, the apple of Seonghwa’s eye, and San didn’t know what to think of him at first. Yeosang was a bit of an enigma, hiding away beneath a stoic face that always seemed to be thinking and oversized hoodies that swallowed his body whole.

They’d gone out for drinks at a bar, and as Yeosang munched away at fried chicken, San watched Seonghwa’s face as Hongjoong rambled on and on about how music changes the world. They weren’t together; San couldn’t understand why, considering the tension between them was so heavy he could feel it curdling beneath his fingertips. But as Hongjoong’s eyes traveled all around the bar while he spoke, Seonghwa’s eyes remained trained on his lips.

Yeosang leaned into him and whispered, “Tell Seonghwa-hyung to ask him out already, for the love of all things good.”

San chuckled and said over loud rock music and greasy atmosphere, “Hey, Seonghwa-hyung, ask him out already!”

Yeosang choked on his chicken and Seonghwa gave him a death stare.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Hongjoong called out, clearly distracted.

“Nothing! He said absolutely nothing, _right_?” Seonghwa’s eyebrows creased and his tone turned threatening, but all San could do was snicker and give him a catlike grin.

San learned shamelessness from the best.

“Right. Absolutely nothing,” San said.

“Oh.” A tint of confusion glossed over Hongjoong’s face before he continued some monologue about music as if he memorized it like lines of a play.

☾

Seonghwa asked Hongjoong to be his boyfriend in November. It was raining and he was holding a transparent umbrella above them.

Hongjoong said yes.

☾

The New Year’s party was much more laid back than the last one San had gone to. It was at Hongjoong’s apartment where a few of his close friends attended.

San was glad that Hongjoong didn’t know any of his previous destinations. Instead, he found himself getting along with an entirely new group of people, all of which had dreamlike ambitions of making it big in creative industries.

All the while, San had finally declared a clinical psychology major the two weeks before, so he could start courses for it come spring. As it turned out, he _did_ get something out of his volunteer opportunity.

“I think it’s wonderful that you want to help people, San,” Yeosang had told him.

Yeosang was an international relations major with an eye on the world and the changing of it. He dreamed almost as big as Wooyoung and smiled just as wide. He told San that he dreamed of making the world a better place as a realist, not an idealist, which San thought was a bit strange.

If one wants to change the world, one has to imagine it first.

Even then, San found himself mesmerized listening to Yeosang talk about saving people, making sure that people wouldn’t even need saving in the first place, and the entire time San had to keep himself from laughing because Yeosang was becoming king of contradicting himself. Fascinated yet amused, San couldn’t help his eyes from glancing down at Yeosang’s lips.

As the countdown began, San wondered where in the world Wooyoung was and if it was the new year yet. At the same time, he felt a hand on his waist, and he turned to his left to see Yeosang.

“Hey, so, uh, we don’t have to, but I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones without a New Year’s kiss, so…”

San chuckled, champagne glass in hand, and he kissed Yeosang hard as the other partygoers cheered in celebration.

He drank the bubbles right after, but they did nothing to erase the taste of Yeosang from his tongue. And honestly, he didn’t mind it one bit.

In fact, he kissed Yeosang again at two, when it was just the two of them in the front seats of Yeosang’s car. Nothing else happened, and San left Yeosang with a smile and a wave.

The cold was like pins and needles to his lungs, but it was one of the freshest breaths of air San had taken in a long, long time.

☾

Before Yeosang left for an exchange program in France once the spring semester started, he asked San if he wanted to try his hand at a long distance relationship.

“But what if you find some hunky French dude?” San asked half-jokingly.

“Oh, hush.” Yeosang laughed and punched his shoulder. “Look, it doesn’t have to be a ‘serious’ thing. It’s just, I like you a lot, but I know things change and long distance relationships are iffy, so—”

San silenced him with a kiss. “Then wait, okay? Wait until you get back, and maybe we can be an actual thing, you know?”

_Wait for me._

_If you want to love me, wait for me._

Something of monumental mass twisted in San’s chest.

Surprisingly, Yeosang agreed. The exchange would only last that spring semester, and then, Yeosang could return and love San to his fullest potential, if he decided to.

San kissed him at the airport. Three words lingered on his tongue and they tasted like champagne.

_It’s too soon._

_It’s too soon, but it’s been long enough. He makes me feel butterflies and stars and supernovas. Things I haven’t felt in so, so long._

_It’s about time, don’t you think, Wooyoungie?_

☾

“Why don’t you move in with him already?” San asked Seonghwa one night over a can of soda and some popcorn.

Seonghwa shrugged. “It just feels too soon. I might move in with him after I graduate, but I want to stay here with you and make sure you don’t get into any trouble.”

Before San could react, Seonghwa had tackled him on the couch and rubbed butter-covered knuckles into his hair. “Hey, you fucker!” he shouted, attempting to swat Seonghwa’s hands away.

“I need to make sure Sannie’s all set,” Seonghwa cooed.

San scoffed, finally managing to get Seonghwa off of him, though his hair was greasy now and he felt disgusting. He _was_ all set, thank you very much, he was a whole ass adult, finally having declared a major, and was finally on that glimmering midnight road towards the future.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Seonghwa said. “If I move in with Hongjoong, you move in with Yeosang. You shouldn’t be alone, and I’m not saying that because I’m worried about you doing something stupid. I’m saying that because I know how alone you _feel_ , and being physically alone will only make it worse. Plus, I see auspicious things for you and Yeosang in the future…” He waggled his eyebrows and made a kissy face.

San chuckled and shook his head. “I’m fine, hyung.”

“It’s merely a suggestion. I’m graduating before you, and I don’t want you to be alone. I won’t leave you until I know you have someone else.”

Something about the statement wiped San’s smile off his face.

“I’ll think about it,” he said flatly.

And he did think about it while he stood under a gentle stream of lukewarm water, washing the butter and grease and dirt from his hair, knowing very well that it wouldn’t be completely clean when he stepped out.

An everlasting reminder of where he came from, and the one person who didn’t care.

☾

Yeosang returned for the fall semester and practically attacked San’s lips when they got back to his place.

They worked. San’s body glowed next to his, and he felt light. Like a million black holes finally disappeared and left dust in their wakes that would lead to something brilliant. The creation of something _new._

San was ready. He was so ready.

☾

Seeing Seonghwa receive his diploma was bittersweet. San was so, so happy for him. Even though it was just an undergraduate bachelor’s, Seonghwa was moving on up in the world, having been accepted to a university in the States notorious for their engineering program. He said that he could stay, but was inspired by San himself to branch out, to explore, to _live_.

San applauded the graduating class with tears in his eyes. Two seats down was Hongjoong, electric blue hair and sparkling silver earrings and all, who was full on crying.

“He said… he said he wants to come with me to the States,” Seonghwa had told San two nights before graduation.

“And? What did you say?”

Seonghwa turned to him with a smile that was brighter than a million suns.

“I said yes. He told me he has enough funds, a-and that he could try out new musical styles there, maybe even try to land a deal.”

“That’s amazing, hyung. I’m so happy for you.”

Seonghwa had laughed then, light and airy, and wiped away tears that weren’t even there. “You know, it’s because of you.”

“What is?”

“That I want to explore. You’ve always been so passionate about discovery and traveling.”

“Sure, I guess. Even though I’m stuck here.”

Seonghwa had rolled his eyes and said, “You’ll get out of here, Sannie. You’ll get to live the life you’ve always wanted to, I’m sure of it.”

San didn’t have it in him to tell him that things _changed_ , that the future and life he pictured was no longer plausible. Perhaps, deep down, Seonghwa knew that and was trying to instill a _different_ picture, a different perspective, one that did and didn’t involve Wooyoung at the same time.

It was because of Wooyoung that San dreamed of traveling at all, and it was the one piece of Wooyoung that remained locked and kept in San’s heart.

The one piece that San wouldn’t let go of. If Wooyoung left anything, it was that.

☾

Yeosang told San he loved him a year after they shared their first kiss. He was the first person to ever tell him that.

San said it back. The words didn’t taste wrong. It was a refreshing dose of water from a cosmic pool of everything _right_.

Alone together, they kissed at the end of the countdown, not a single body to be seen, and somewhere, San swore he could hear the sound of something big and bright.

☾

San had to say goodbye to the massive windowsill eventually. Yeosang was helping him pack up the last of his belongings as he stood in the hallway, gazing out at the moon.

“Sing me a Song Mingi,” he mouthed to himself, then chuckled. “Hey, Yeosang.”

“Yeah?” Yeosang came up behind him and snaked his arms around his waist.

“What do you think of the stars?”

“They’re pretty,” Yeosang said. “Big, flaming balls of gas are pretty sexy if you ask me.”

San laughed and turned away, finally. He followed Yeosang out the space that sheltered him for three years and into a new one. He was sure this space wasn’t going to be the one he finally settled down in, but he was getting closer. He could feel it.

To his final destination.

☾

“Stars are so cool, Sannie! To think, they’re so far away, but everyone can see them because of how brightly they burn. I want to be like that, Sannie. I want people to see me as something bright, something that’s _there_. I want to be a star. Not, like, a movie star or a celebrity or anything like that. And, like, I don’t care if people don’t like me, honestly. I just want to be something to someone. I want to be somebody’s star. Something that’s always there, whether visible or invisible, that gives someone a sense of comfort and something magnificent to look at. I want… to be a star.”

☾

Two more years with Yeosang flew by in a flash. Two years, two exchanges where Yeosang traveled but video called San almost every night. He was going places, literally, while San kept his head in textbooks and took on internships that guided him in the direction he chose for himself.

At the psychiatric hospital that neighbored the emergency room he once volunteered at, he wandered the halls and wondered which room belonged to Choi Jongho.

Jongho wasn’t there anymore, obviously. San just hoped he was _somewhere_ , with a basketball or a microphone or both in his hands, smiling, because he deserved nothing less.

☾

San finally felt like he belonged.

Whenever Yeosang returned home, whenever Yeosang was next to him, he _belonged._ He finally landed, finally snuggled into the softest cotton sheets and made himself at home. He had gotten so weary of drifting, but he was _here_ now, by Yeosang’s side.

Yeosang painted San’s neck, chest, and thighs with hickeys, murmured sweet, sultry “I love you’s” into his skin, and set San’s body on fire. He fucked him like he was made to, like they were meant to fit together, two puzzle pieces that were glued together. San was a snug fit to Yeosang’s other half.

Saying “I love you” had never felt so right.

☾

San was twenty-five when retrograde began.

It was both his and Yeosang’s final year; they were to graduate that December and set foot into new territory. Yeosang had returned from a trip to Spain that summer, tan and conversationally fluent in Spanish. He enjoyed confusing San with his newly learned language.

Autumn sparked San’s taste buds’ craving for maple-flavored things, so he meandered to a café close to campus after one of his classes, pleasantly surprised to see Yeosang sitting at one of the tables.

“Oh, hi!” Yeosang called out upon seeing his boyfriend. “What are you doing here?”

“Leaves falling means time for autumn flavors,” San said, amused. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m meeting somebody. I met him while I was in Spain. Said he’s actually from here and that he was finally returning after six years of traveling abroad. We really clicked during the program, so—oh, there he is! Wooyoung, over here!”

No.

There was no way in the universe.

It had to be a different Wooyoung.

Because the Wooyoung San knew was _gone._ He had fallen out of orbit, launched himself into an unknown galaxy, never to be seen again. He left without a word or a note or anything physical to remember him by. For all San knew, he was _dead._

Except he wasn’t. In fact, he was approaching, his hair jet black and much, much longer than San remembered it. It was too long. It couldn’t be Wooyoung.

Wooyoung had a mole under his left eye and a bottom lip that jutted out just the tiniest bit. He was shorter than San and San made fun of him for it. He liked the color black because it was the color of space.

Whoever this Wooyoung was had everything San’s Wooyoung had.

Yeosang had gotten up from his seat to greet this Wooyoung with a hug.

“San, this is Wooyoung.” Yeosang’s grip was gentle on his arm but San could feel it like sais through his veins.

He was drifting in that moment, slowly turning, slowly falling back into an orbit that he was trying so desperately to escape from. He did everything in his power to resist the gravitational pull.

Wooyoung stared at him with an unreadable expression. Perhaps that was a side effect of being away for so long. San barely recognized him.

He hadn’t gotten any taller. His face hadn’t changed all that much. But this Wooyoung exuded some kind of overwhelming _power_ , one that San’s Wooyoung didn’t have. Or, maybe he did have it, and it was his voyages across outer space that crowned him king.

“San.”

Even his voice sounded the same.

He reached out his hand for San to take.

“It’s… really good to see you again.”

Perhaps San would’ve said the same thing four or five years ago. But _six_ whole years of absence, wordless, painful silence?

It felt far from good. Lightyears away. San felt like he was going to throw up.

“Oh, you two know each other?” Yeosang inquired, clueless.

Right. Because Yeosang knew nothing about Wooyoung. Because San didn’t let anyone beside Seonghwa know Wooyoung’s name. He was too busy trying to forget it.

It was futile. There was no way San could forget Wooyoung’s name even if he tried.

“Yeah,” Wooyoung said. “We were classmates back in high school.”

_Classmates?_

San’s blood felt like it would burst out from his body. Atoms began to spasm everywhere in his being as he found himself clenching his fists, biting his tongue, because how _dare_ Wooyoung say they were just _classmates_ when both of them knew very fucking well they were more than that?

Before San knew it, he was storming off, the fun, autumn flavors of lattes long forgotten.

☾

“ _What_?” Seonghwa exclaimed, his static voice ringing from the other line. “He’s back?”

“He is,” San said, voice cracking. “And all buddy-buddy with Yeosang, apparently. They met in Spain. _Spain_ , hyung. Was Wooyoung really in fucking _Spain_ this entire time?”

Seonghwa sighed. “San, I… fuck, I can’t even begin to imagine how you’re feeling right now.” A pause. “Okay, uh, where are you? Where’s Yeosang?”

“I don’t know, I came back home and left Yeosang and Wooyoung at the café.”

Just then, San’s phone vibrated against his ear.

**[Yeosang]**

_hey, im finishing up with wooyoung right now_

_he said he really wants to talk to you_

_said he’ll be at the café the rest of the day in case you decide to go_

“Fucking _shit_!” San’s voice was cracking every other word. “Hyung, I can’t, I don’t know if I can… if I can face him again.”

“I think you have to, Sannie,” Seonghwa said. “I know… I know it’s gonna be hard. But you deserve answers. You need them.”

_You need them._

_After six years, you deserve them. You need them._

San’s feet carried him towards the gravitational pull of what once was. There was no use fighting it.

☾

Wooyoung was actually outside the café when San finally arrived at dusk. He was looking up, _of course he was_ , though his gaze shifted instantly as San drew nearer.

At first, there was nothing. Just an invisible string of silence as San took it all in again, his body burning with memories rather than anger instead, as their last night together resurfaced in his brain.

“San.” Wooyoung said his name so similarly. _Carefully._ “I… I don’t know where to begin.”

San was glaring at him, at least, he thought he was. He might have been. But his chest was hurting too much and his eyes were swelling already, to the point where he felt like he _couldn’t_ be looking at Wooyoung with such malice.

He never did, after all.

“Let’s go for a walk, yeah?”

Wooyoung held out his arm.

Instinctively, San linked his in the space.

They wandered the streets, streets that San hadn’t even ambled down during his spare time, surprisingly. San caught Wooyoung looking up multiple times, because that was what he always did. The moon was there, a waxing gibbous. Yellow. Bright.

“So. I think I owe you an explanation,” Wooyoung said.

“Yeah, I think you do,” San responded with a bite.

Wooyoung seemed to ignore it. “The night I left… I had a flight to catch early next morning. I was leaving for the States to start my studies.”

“Which were?”

There was a pause. “Journalism. Well, that was my main focus. While I went to study journalism, I also took a lot of courses on media and business and… learned a language or two. Or three.” Wooyoung chuckled. “I did a lot.”

“Okay. So, why did you leave without saying a single word to me or your parents?”

They stopped in their tracks, on a narrow road that could barely be considered a road, under a street lamp that was dimmer than the moon. “That was me being a huge fucking idiot,” Wooyoung said, catching San off-guard. “Trust me, San. I thought I was being all cool and cryptic back then. I cancelled my phone service, took off without a word, all because I wanted to be all mysterious and shit. I… fuck, San, I didn’t realize how shitty it was until after I boarded the plane.”

San narrowed his eyes. As angry as he was… it sounded exactly like something Wooyoung would do.

“If I’m being honest, I didn’t anticipate it taking so long. I thought I would travel, get back in two years and surprise you. But… more opportunities kept coming up. I was given offers to travel to even _more_ places, do even more things in all sorts of countries, and I couldn’t pass up on them. And I’ve graduated, actually. A degree in journalism, but with so much more under my belt. You have no idea, Sannie. I’ve seen and done so much.”

All the while, San saw the same university halls and classrooms every. Single. Day.

“So… what then, Wooyoung? Are you here for good now? Are you moving back home? What?”

It was then. Then, when Wooyoung looked down at his feet.

“No, San. I’m not moving back home. I came back because I finally had a lull in my schedule and… I needed to come back.”

Then. He looked up again. Moonlight and street lamps and stars glistening in those eyes that San once loved.

“I needed to see you and my family again.”

“You’re kidding, right?” San removed his arm from Wooyoung’s. “Wooyoung, it’s been six _fucking years_! I haven’t heard a single word from you this entire time! You _left me_ , the night I told you I loved you, after I… after I gave my fucking virginity to you, after I was so _vulnerable_ to you… you just fucking _left_! Do you even realize how much that _hurt_?”

His voice echoed so much in the alley that it didn’t even sound like his anymore. Wooyoung winced, something San rarely ever saw him do because he was always just so sure of himself, always so confident, held himself upright.

He’d never looked so small.

“I… I have a boyfriend now, Wooyoung. I don’t… I can’t…”

“San, I’m not asking you to drop everything to be with me,” Wooyoung said, in a tone San couldn’t identify.

_Why? Why do you look so small?_

“I know that I hurt you. I _know_. I was young and stupid and immature, but that’s not an excuse. I know I must have put you through hell. I know, and I’m sorry.”

_Why are you looking at me like that?_

“San, I didn’t say this to you back then because it was the one thing I wasn’t sure of. But… as I traveled, as I kissed and dated and fucked other people, I didn’t once stop thinking about you. There was a point in time where I realized that yes, I did love you. I did, I really, truly did. And then… there was just one day where I realized that I can’t undo what I did. That so much time had already passed and that you’d probably already moved on. I lost you, I lost the opportunity to love you. I had so many opportunities handed to me, and you were…”

Wooyoung sighed and closed his eyes. San wanted him to reopen them. He missed them so much.

“Not telling you that I loved you was the one mistake I’ve made in my life that I truly regret. And I will regret it for a long, long time.”

San wanted to reach out to him. He wanted to pull him back into that familiar embrace and see if it was just as familiar. He wanted to kiss Wooyoung again, feel him in the same way he did the night before he disappeared.

But the damage had been done. Here he was again, in a beat up rocket, probably beyond repair. And the universe was shifting, undulating around him as outer space wavered and quivered like sound.

“It’s okay, San. I fucked up, and this is my comeuppance. I know that you’ve moved on, that you don’t love me anymore, and that’s okay. It happens.”

 _But do you still love me?_ San wanted to ask. _Why do you sound so sad?_

Wooyoung looked at him with a million shooting stars in his eyes and sniffled.

“I’m glad… I’m so glad that you’re still… still here.”

☾

_It’s been six years, Wooyoung._

_Six years of drifting, landing, swerving, crashing… I was alone and not alone. I was always missing something._

_I missed you so much. You have no idea._

_And even after all this time, after all the agony I put myself through over missing you, I still can’t find it in me to be mad at you._

☾

Before they parted ways, Wooyoung handed San a note. It was written on a pastel purple post-it in sloppy handwriting that was barely legible due to how small it was. But because San knew Wooyoung and all of his childish scrawl that he apparently never grew out of, he was able to read it with ease.

_‘I promised you I’d get us both out of here.’_

_“Just give it time.”_

Wooyoung never specified how much.

But apparently, he meant it.

☾

Yeosang wasn’t stupid. He noticed how San was absent more, how he came home late, how skittish he seemed under their normal displays of affection. San wasn’t stupid either; he knew he was seemingly uncomfortable in Yeosang’s presence no matter how hard he tried not to be.

And eventually, Yeosang put two and two together.

It was just outside their apartment. Yeosang was sitting on the cold concrete steps with a cigarette in his hand. Its wisps of smoke fluttered up into the atmosphere. San imagined that the atmosphere was probably already feeling nauseous.

“You loved him, didn’t you?” Yeosang asked him as he sat down.

San knew this was coming.

“Y-yeah. I did.”

Silence. The burning of Yeosang’s cigarette. The stars above them wept.

“And you still do, don’t you?”

San would say no if it didn’t strangle him to say it.

Yeosang nodded. “You don’t have to say sorry, San. I get it.”

“Do you?” San asked, barely forming it as a question.

“Seonghwa-hyung told me everything because he said it would hurt you too much to tell it yourself.” To San’s surprise, Yeosang’s tone was leveled, calm. “And yeah, I can only imagine how conflicted you feel right now. Six years of not hearing anything from someone you loved? And then him reappearing in your life all of a sudden?” Yeosang took another drag of his cigarette and shook his head. “San, believe me when I say that I love you. I do. But you know that saying, if you love someone, let them go?”

“Yeosang… I love you too, I never lied to you—”

“I know, San. I don’t think you ever lied to me or that you were trying to fool yourself into thinking you love me.” Yeosang smirked. “But now… the only other person you ever loved is back in your life. The _first_ person you loved, at that. I’m not… I’m not going to give you the ultimatum of him or me, because I already know.”

San inhaled deeply and shut his eyes. Fireworks burst beneath them.

“When I met him… it’s like I saw him in you. When I talked to him, I thought of you. You two talk so similarly, like… like idealists, people with extraordinary imaginations and ambitions. The purest hearts and intentions. And when I saw you two meet at the café, it’s like everything fell into place.” Yeosang sighed, his cigarette smoke mingling with the vapor from his lungs. “You two are meant for each other.”

San sniffled, his nose and eyes dripping. “I’m… I’m sorry, Yeosang.”

“Don’t be,” Yeosang said with a calm shake of his head. “Don’t be sorry for loving someone. Ever.”

And with that, San knew he would have to find another destination to land. Hopefully, after his fifth, his sixth would be his last.

☾

“I did it for you, Sannie. For us. I was going to get a job that involved me traveling, and I was going to take you with me everywhere I went. I promised you I would get us out of this place. I know… I know I shouldn’t have left like that. I should’ve told you. There are so many things I wish I could undo, reverse, do over. But fuck, Sannie, I never stopped loving you.”

☾

Wooyoung’s house smelled the same. His mother greeted San with humongous tears and a bear hug, squeals and sobs as she cried, “I missed you both so much!”

San’s mother was there too, sitting patiently at the dinner table. Hell, the whole gang was there—Wooyoung’s brothers, San’s sister, the aunts and uncles San met in passing whose faces he barely remembered.

This was not his house, but this was his home.

Next to Wooyoung. That was his home.

☾

“Your bed is a lot smaller than I remember it to be,” San said, plopping down onto it. “And we haven’t even grown any taller.”

Wooyoung chuckled and lay down next to him, a familiar position is San ever knew one. The ceiling, the light, the _telescope_ , all of it seemed untouched. Perhaps cleaned once in a while just to keep everything from getting dusty, but overall, it was that same bedroom. The one where San watched Wooyoung grow, smile, cry… and observe the stars.

San sat up and padded over to the telescope. “Man, I didn’t have a telescope overseas. I missed that thing,” Wooyoung commented.

San chuckled as he put his eye to the eyepiece.

He was met with a cluster of stars with a cloud surrounding them, a hauntingly beautiful sight. He gasped, realizing that _he’d never once looked through Wooyoung’s telescope._

“You see it, right? The cluster,” Wooyoung said, resting his chin on San’s shoulder.

“Y-yeah.” Wooyoung’s hands came up to grasp his waist. San shivered.

“I always tilted my telescope everywhere, looking for all there was to see from this tiny window,” Wooyoung said. “But as soon as I found this little nebula, I stopped moving it. It’s my favorite thing to look at.”

San pulled away from the telescope, and Wooyoung’s head moved with him. They were so close now, again, after so, so long. Wooyoung’s thumb gently brushed the area beneath San’s eye as he cupped his cheek, smiling.

“I love you, San,” he whispered. “I always did, and I never stopped.”

San grabbed onto his wrist and held his hand there because he didn’t want Wooyoung to let go. Not again.

Telling Wooyoung he loved him wasn’t as easy as it used to be. But it still felt so fucking _right._

It felt right when Wooyoung finally laid him down again. His lips on San’s skin were perfectly soft, wet, paintbrushes that made their marks and brought out the beauty in San’s body. San was flourishing with every single one of Wooyoung’s touches, making up for so many years of lost time and lost love. His back arched off the bed when Wooyoung went down on him, when Wooyoung fucked into him slowly, like they had all the time in the world.

When San closed his eyes, he saw Wooyoung and the magnificent galaxy, the clusters of stars, the bright _something_ he always wanted to be.

_My star, Wooyoung. You are my star._

☆

San is twenty-seven, freshly shaven and underneath the dazzling moonlight when he finally, _finally_ lands.

He will never settle. Because that’s not who Wooyoung is. Wooyoung will never settle, never stop moving, and if he does, it’s merely a pitstop. He is a shooting star that never dies, never collides. Always travels.

And San is the tail that follows.

San is, was, and always has been in Wooyoung’s orbit. He was always meant to be.

So he follows Wooyoung across seas and continents. They meet people of all sorts, who have seen their own fair share of storms and obstacles. San sees youth, and he looks at them and remembers one of his old destinations. And he thinks. And learns.

“To change the world… wouldn’t that be amazing?” Wooyoung thinks aloud.

“An impossible feat,” San offers, “but quite the idea to entertain.”

Wooyoung chuckles and rests his head on San’s shoulder.

“Choi San,” he says.

“Jung Wooyoung.”

It’s as if San can feel his smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jung Wooyoung.”

“And you, Choi San.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/galaxysangs)


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